Paris under the Commune eBook

LXIX.

The Commune has naturally brought an infinite number
of journals into existence. Try, if you will,
to count the leaves of the forest, the grains of sand
on the seashore, the stars in the heavens, but do not,
in your wildest dreams, attempt to enumerate the newspapers
that have seen the light since the famous day of the
18th of March. Felix Pyat has a journal, Le
Vengeur; Vermorel has a journal, Le Cri du People;
Delescluze has a journal, Le Reveil; there is
not a member of the Commune but indulges in the luxury
of a sheet in which he tells his colleagues daily
all the evil he thinks of them. It must be acknowledged
that these gentlemen have an extremely bad opinion
one of the other. I defy even the Gaulois
of Versailles—­yes, the Gaulois itself—­to
treat Felix Pyat as Vermorel treats him, and if it
be remembered on the other hand what Felix Pyat says
of Vermorel, the Gaulois will be found singularly
good-natured. Napoleon cautioned us long ago “to
wash our dirty linen at home,” but good patriots
cannot be expected to profit by the counsels of a
tyrant. So the columns of the Commune papers are
devoted to the daily and mutual pulling to pieces of
the Commune’s members. But where will these
ephemeral sheets be in six months, in one month, or
in a week’s time perhaps? The wind which
wafts away the leaves of the rose and the laurel,
will be no less cruel for the political leaves.
Let us then, for the sake of posterity, offer a specimen
of what is—­or as we shall soon say, what
was—­the Communalist press of to-day.
Be they edited by Marotteau, or Duchesne, or Paschal
Grousset, or by any other emulator of Paul-Louis Courier,
these worthy journals are all much alike, and one
example will suffice for the whole.

[Illustration: VERMESCH (PERE DUCHESNE).[72]]

First of all, and generally in enormous type, stand
the LATEST NEWS, the news from the Porte Maillot where
the friends of the Commune are fighting, and the news
from Versailles where the enemies of the country are
sitting. They usually run somewhat in this style:—­

“It is more and more confirmed
that the Assembly of Versailles is surrounded
and made prisoner by the troops returned from Germany.
The generals of the Empire have newly proclaimed
Napoleon: the Third, Emperor. After
a violent quarrel about two National Guards whom
Marshal MacMahon had had shot, but had omitted to have
cooked for his soldiers, Monsieur Thiers sent
a challenge to the Marshal, by his two seconds.
These seconds were no other than the Comte de Chambord
and the Comte de Paris. Marshal MacMahon chose
the ex-Emperor and Paul de Cassagnac. The
duel took place in the Rue des Reservoirs, in
the midst of an immense crowd. The Marshal was
killed, and was therefore obliged to renounce the
command of the troops. But the Assembly would
not accept his resignation.